Tris Ascending
by E.C. Scrubb
Summary: The story of a city fighting to survive, friends struggling to remember, and a young woman facing her demons in a stolen past. Can they remember and restore their society before war comes to their city from afar? An A/U story that begins at the end of Allegiant, with changes to the way canon ended.


**A/N:** This is a A/U world, but holds to canon up until the (first) attack on the Bureau. So yes, there are a few things that are different.

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**Prologue**

Confusion.

A week ago, that's all I knew. I knew what that word meant, but I couldn't say how, and I couldn't say how I knew that the warm hand gripping mine belonged to someone I should care for. Maybe I did care for him. But, I needed to remember who he was first.

A groan reached my ears. I turned too fast and scraped the back of my head across the asphalt. It hurt, but I knew I shouldn't show pain. Why? Couldn't say.

The boy next to me, the one whose hand I was holding, opened his eyes. My stomach clenched. Emotions recalled memories that refused to obey, refused to tell me why my stomach flipped at his sight. Maybe I did care for him.

"What is your name?" he asked.

I'd have loved to tell him, but all I could do was shrug. "What's yours?"

"I have two."

"Two names?" That's wasn't normal, was it? Maybe it was. "Tell me one of them, then."

His eyebrows pulled together. "I can't."

I looked passed him to a collapsed building in the distance. Strewn among the rubble were parts of a broken metal cylinder as long as two train cars. I stared at it until a ball of orange lit the horizon and a rumble shook the ground.

More groans. I became aware that all around me lay others. A couple of faces I knew I should have recognized, like the boy whose hand I'm desperately clinging to. Boy? He's more like a man, or a young man, at least. One without fear— Memories flashed, these weren't empty, but a swirl of colors. _Fear_. Why did that word cause a reaction? Was it a name? His name?

"Fear."

The boy looks at me. "No. Are you afraid?"

Afraid? What a stupid idea. "Of course not."

A week later, I am. I now sit in Jeanine's office and wonder what has happened. There are a few things I know: the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, whatever that meant, is destroyed; a memory virus was released over the city, wiping out our identities. Few of us were inoculated against it, but the virus was adaptable and fast, so by the time it reached us, our inoculations were only partially effective. I know those a few who bear names that make my heart jump when I hear them: Four, Christina, Cara, Uriah, and then there are others, like Caleb.

Caleb. My brother. My tormentor. My savior. An hour before we planned to wipe the memories of the Bureau workers, people from the fringe attacked, and this time, they sought to destroy everything . . . _this time?_ Maybe that wasn't the first attack. We made it to the city, though again, I have no idea how, or how we found Four. We still don't know why he's called that. Almost all of what we do know comes from someone named Matthew who died in the Bureau explosion. I don't remember him, but he dumped a century's worth of files into the city's computers. Many of them however, are corrupted, and none of us yet knows, or can remember, how to fix them.

But we must remember, we must find out because they are coming. Matthew warned us. He didn't say who, just that they are coming, and they're going to wipe out our city. In order save it, we need to prepare, we need to organize, but beyond everything else, we need to remember. And that's why I'm here, in a room that haunts my nightmares, a room filled with ghosts of memories that I know I'm better off without, because I must reclaim them in order to save all who live here, but least I have hope. This morning was a turning point for me. I remembered something, Something vitally important.

I remembered that I am Tris, and I am Dauntless.

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**A/N: **I read the series over the last week, and as I was becoming more disillusioned through the last half of the last book, this story started working itself out in my head. When I finished the last book, I sat down and wrote this. It's been edited since, of course. I'm not sure how much interest there is in this fanfic, so I'm not sure how much I'll write of this, but we'll see.

Also, this is my first, first-person fic that I've posted. So please, review, and be honest in them. While I love getting positive reviews, it's the reviews that are critical that make me a better writer. Thanks!


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